Verse of the Day

"While we look not at the things which are seen, 

but at the things which are not seen: 

for the things which are seen are temporal; 

but the things which are not seen are eternal."

2 Corinthians 4:18

Visit to Hamburg

On Valentines Day weekend we visited Hamburg. This city has no Greater Grace church, but we have a great contact there in the Drager family. The family opened up their home to us and we held a woman's Bible study there on Friday night, 

February 13th. The house was filled with about 15 woman who listened to an amazing message by Kathie Groenewold about fear. How we all have fear and God says in the Bible 365 times "do not fear". That's one command for every day to not fear. The woman were very open and it was wonderful to have an opportunity to meet each of them. The desire is to start a woman's Bible study every other month and bring ladies from the church here in Berlin to Hamburg. In the above picture from left to right is Emily, Kathie, Pastor Gary, Harvey & Isabella Drager with their two children, Jasmine (Isabella's sister who is part of our church in Berlin), and Agata.

Hamburg is a beautiful city, please keep these people and this city in your prayer as it is the desire of Isabella to have this Bible study grow and grow and one day have a Greater Grace church in Hamburg.

This is a main walking street in Hamburg:Emily on the corner of the walking street in Hamburg:

Paris Conference

Recently, I got the opportunity to visit the Paris church with Pastor Gary and be a part of their conference, "The Sovereignty of God." Unfortunately Emily couldn't join us, it's been very tight financially. We left on Thursday and took the train from Berlin to Heidelberg, about a 5 hour trip. Pastor Gary & I visited the wonderful people in Heidelberg for a night, holding a Bible Study at the usual place (Verena, Claudia, and Daniella's apartment). Please keep those names in your prayers, along with the Uhse's, Daniel, and Petra. These are faithful people in Heidelberg. 

The next morning, Pastor Gary, Verena and I all drove to Paris. Paris is about a 5 hour drive from Heidelberg. Friday evening we met the church in Paris, along with some of the body of Christ from Geneva, Switzerland and Nimes, France. We had such an anointed session with Pastor Jeff Phelps, the guest speaker. It was so amazing to see these people following God, with the same vision and heartbeat that we were apart of. To know that God was working in people's lives and cultivating hearts, and to see it with your own eyes was just amazing. We met again on Saturday for two sessions, which were equally as anointed as the first was, if not more. They also had a graduation while we were there. Three students graduated from the Bible School in Paris. Praise God! Then Sunday morning we joined them for church before we hopped in the car and started our long trip home.

We drove back to Heidelberg, you guessed it, 5 hours, then caught a train back to Berlin, another 5 hours. It was a long day on Sunday, but so worth it. It was just so encouraging to see the body in France. It made it worth eating ham and cheese sandwiches for 4 days straight. Food is very expensive in Paris.

Fire On Ice

If you ever wondered, can you really build a fire on a frozen lake? This post is for you. We performed our own Mythbusters test, and yes it's true. You really can....... 

Just a small update...

To those of you who follow our blog regularly you may have noticed that there haven't been any posts for over one month now! You may be wondering, who are these slackers that we follow so diligently? And what have they been doing? Well the answer is we have been working on giving the church here in Berlin a makeover. Top to bottom, new paint, new curtains, new seats, even a new coffee bar area. We are heading up the makeover, deciding on paint colors, wood colors, curtain fabrics, etc... and then the fun part... DOING the work. It has been a lot of trips to Ikea & Obi (the European version of Home Depot) and a lot of long days and nights painting the tall church walls. 

Please keep this church makeover in your prayers and we will be posting before and after pictures soon!!! 

Thanks for following,

Matt & Emily

Baby Dedication!

The church here is growing! If it's not new people coming in the door, it's new babies being brought up in the body here! We had a baby dedication this past Sunday service and 4 babies were dedicated. Please keep in prayer the parents of these awesome kids. Also please keep in prayer our Sunday School which is taking on a new form and filling up more and more every week. Pray for the teachers, for the helpers, and also that we would be able to renovate the children's Sunday School room down in the church basement.